From Your Anxious Child: Emails to Parents by Edward H. Plimpton, PhD
Worry Management on the Go-A Simple Technique
In our quest to help anxious children, we are always on the lookout for simple things to help children in those anxious moments. A very simple and portable technique for dealing with anxiety has appeared in a book for children, Scaredies Away! by Stacy Fiorille and Barry McDonagh, and in another one for adults by Alistair Horscroft called Beat Anxiety Now. Both involve making a fist.
There are sound ideas operating in the simple technique to be described. The basic idea is that fighting anxious thoughts or trying not to think about them does not work. On some level, you have to accept that you are having an anxious thought or feeling. So acknowledging them with or without some humor is important. Since anxiety can take the form of thoughts or feelings, noticing where they are in the body can transform the experience by this act of observation. The act of noticing is actually a version of facing your fear or doing an exposure. Anxiety narrows the perspective on the world, so relief involves finding a different frame of reference. One way to change perspective is to imagine transforming anxiety.
In Scaredies Away! the technique is called “The Magic Finger Countdown” and it consists of 4 steps. “Step One: Say ‘hello’ to each and every one of your fears and your body. Step Two: Make a fist and squeeze all of your scaredies out through your arm and into your fist. Step Three: Squeeze your fist tight and tell your fears you have them right where you want them. Step Four: Count down backwards from five while you release one finger at a time. Blow those fears away to make sure they’re gone. Step Five: Say good-by to yours fears. Congratulate yourself on completing the technique! Trust yourself!”
An adult variation on this procedure has been suggested by Alistair Horscroft in his book Beat Anxiety Now, which may also be more acceptable to an older child or adolescent. It is also a five step process.
1. Point with your finger to the place in your head or body where your anxiety, stress or tension is located.
2. Imagine there is a window or door just over that area. Leave the window or door open.
3. Make a light fist with your hand and quietly acknowledge the thought or feeling by saying “yes” to yourself and repeat that several times to yourself.
4. Ask yourself whether you would be willing to let a little of that tension go. Then open your hand and just imagine some of that tension, worry or feeling leaving your body. Don’t try to remove all of the tension, just a manageable bit of it. If you try to remove too much of the tension, it would like the circuits of your brain would get overloaded.
5. Repeat this several times during the day.
The similarity between these two techniques is quite apparent. And the authors both caution that this procedure isn’t magic and it takes practice. As with any technique, it needs to be introduced and practiced in nonanxious moments. It is hard to learn anything new in a highly anxious state. I like the simplicity of the technique and its portability. You can pretty much do it anywhere for a wide range of anxiety. One child told me that she quietly made a fist under her desk at school and did this technique and was able to inconspicuously calm herself. The books will obviously provide a more detailed explanation of this technique.
copyright@Edward H. Plimpton, PhD 2014
Your anxious child 
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